Gone (Michael Grant) One Shots
by saltydean
Summary: Taking place during the first book of the Gone series by Michael Grant. These one shots consist of more suspensful, fearful, angsty and even emotional events between mainly Sam, Quinn and Astrid (and perhaps occasionally Edilio) as they continue to deal with the whole new, terrifying world they’ve found themselves trapped in.
1. Introduction

**Hey everyone!**

 **Please take your time to read this note, I'd really appreciate it!**

 **This book is going to consist of random one shots I write. My focus is going to be on Sam and Quinn, as well as Lana and Astrid.**

 **I absolutely love how although Sam and Quinn have their arguments and stuff, they still care about each other a lot as friends, so I'm mostly going to be writing about them and their friendship.**

 **I'll definitely try to write one shots that center around not only Quinn, Sam and Astrid, but also Edilio and maybe even Caine and other characters, but just know that my focal points are Sam, Astrid, Quinn and Lana (who I honestly ship although Lana and Edilio have a thing in the actual series)**

 **I assigned the characters to a cast I think might work really well with them:**

 **\- Jake T. Austin as Sam**

 **\- Logan Lerman as Quinn**

 **\- Vanessa Merrell as Lana**

 **\- Elle Fanning as Astrid**

 **Please feel** **free to leave requests in the comments and I'll definitely try my best to write them!**


	2. Through the Dark

Brushing dirt off his torn up shirt, Sam stood up from his seated position in front of the slowly dying fire. Something inside of his head was pushing him, begging him to comply. He could no longer bare the idea that with all of this insanity and chaos with the FAYZ and Caine going on, darkness was still his biggest fear. There were a lot more things for him to be afraid of, but no, this was the worst.

He inhaled deeply, trying his best not to wake everyone as he slowly crept across the branch and leaf filled area. He guarded himself by uselessly holding a hand behind his back, just like he'd do when he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night when everything was still normal— disregarding the fact he had powers back then too.

The darkness got stronger and stronger, the moon and stars still visible through the FAYZ wall or dome, or whatever the heck it was, came to no use. The darkness vanquished the light.

He stepped into the beginning of a large patch of trees and bushes that took up a majority of the hills they had escaped to. All of a sudden, as soon as he had walked a few feet into the scary forest, it was as though everything got ten times quieter. His immense fear blocked out all his other senses. He was too distracted with trying not to freak out that he had completely zoned out, no longer hearing the chirping of crickets or the quiet tapping of feet of rodents that ran around and up the trees.

Tears sprung into Sam's eyes out of nowhere, and it was then that he realized how fast and loudly his heart was beating. He had never really realized how truly terrified he was of the dark. He never knew why he was afraid, but he always got nervous and anxious when it came to being in the dark. Even more being _alone_ in the dark.

But now it was time to face his fear. He knew it was too late now, almost a week into this horrifying and he still hasn't gotten over a fear that couldn't even compare to what was going on right now.

He rotated ninety degrees to the right, trying to make out what he was getting himself into. The fact that not only was he afraid of the dark but now he was worrying about the fact he could get lost in this unfamiliar location worried him more.

Before he could continue his wild idea of facing his fear, he was scared out of his mind. He spun around after a light pressure rested on his shoulder. He held a hand on his panicked chest, almost having a heart attack. He felt like his heart was about to blast out of his chest. He sighed in relief, although his facial expression showed he was still absolutely horrified, when he saw Quinn standing in front of

"Dude, you scared me!" Sam gasped, blinking away the tears he was previosuly oblivious to.

"I can tell." Quinn chuckled, pointing at his best friend's— maybe even ex-best friend's quickly heaving chest. Normally Quinn would've teased Sam about the fact that he was pretty much crying, but he decided to pretend he hadn't even realized. He felt bad for Sam. "What are you doing here anyways?"

"I needed to think." Sam lied, avoiding the previous conversation he had with Quinn.

Quinn always knew Sam was afraid of the dark, but he wasn't surprised that Sam had dodged the truth even though they had talked about his fear earlier when they were looking for firewood.

"Come on man, you and I both know that's not why you're out here." Sam could barely make out Quinn crossing his arms over his chest.

"What do you care anyway?" Sam rolled his eyes, feeling more comfortable now that he wasn't alone in the dark. He took a few small steps into the forest, Quinn following close behind him until they started properly walking but slowly.

Quinn sighed, knowing his friend was still mad at him for betraying him although he didn't mean to. But whether Sam was mad at him or not, he was never going to let that get in the way of caring about him. They'd been best friends since they were so young and had always been there for each other.

"I'm always gonna be here for you, brah." Quinn assured, pulling him back to stop him from walking and to face him instead. "You don't have to do this. You know, try to get over your fear."

"I have to. How am I supposed to get through all this crap with the FAYZ if I can't even _look_ at a dark place without shuddering?"

Quinn gripped onto Sam's right wrist, holding it up. "Learn to use this then." He motioned to his palms where the power of light came out of. "You were given light, Sam. Not telekenises, not fire. Light."

"I'm trying." Sam sighed. "I really am."

"I know, man." Quinn sighed sympathetically. "You'll get there, though."

Sam turned back around, facing the seemingly never ending path of pitch black. He took a deep breath before walking again, hands balled into fists at his sides. He expected Quinn to just turn around and get back to sleep, but was surprised when he found his friend catching up to his slow walking pace.

Quinn patted Sam's tense back comfortingly, knowing how terrified he was.

"You can go back, you know." Sam said bluntly, to focused on getting through the dark path without having a heart attack.

"Nah, we go through this together." Quinn started with a comforting smile. "Just like we always do."

"Thanks, Quinn." Sam mumbled breathily as the carried on walking through the forest that lacked any and all light.

"I mean, the dark isn't all that bad, right?" Quinn began, looking up at the almost-black sky. Sam followed his actions, a small smile creeping up on his face after noticing the hundreds of visible twinkling stars. He hadn't payed attention to them in the past week, too preoccupied on the FAYZ and everything else that was going on.

"Right?" Quinn repeated, smiling at his now cheered up friend.

"Right."


	3. Bad Decisions

Lana strolled down the halls of the fire station, suspicion getting the best of her. Quinn had been disappearing a lot ever since they had gotten back from Coates Academy after being kidnapped by Caine and his minions.

A dreadful feeling constantly tugged at Sam, Edilio, Astrid and Lana's stomachs for days, hoping what they were all thinking wasn't true. They hoped more than anything— even more than Sam's possible disappearance in a few days— that Quinn wasn't working with Caine again. That he wasn't betraying not only his own best friend again, but also his team—his kind-of family while they're stuck in the FAYZ.

Although Sam suggested to just let Quinn deal with whatever he was going through on his own to figure things out, even if what he was doing was betraying his friends or if he was just too lazy, Lana couldn't help but feel curious and dig for answers.

She walked down the hallway with busted lamps that had been like this for a week. Edilio had forgotten to fix them, being too preoccupied with planning with Sam on ways to build up their army to beat Caine and to generally survive.

No one had gone into this room since the lights went out. Not only were they busy, but this corridor has nothing much to offer other than a couple of storage rooms with extra hoses and other things that didn't come to much use.

Now, not only had Lana gotten Briana to patrol around the small town and ask if anyone had seen Quinn, but she had also gone around a few buildings herself too. She was down to two more corridors in the fire station before all hope was lost and there was pretty much no other possibility than Quinn being with Caine at Coates academy. As weird as it sounded, these two corridors were their last hope.

She walked down the one consisting storage rooms, opening a few doors to no avail. She went deeper into the hallway, about to open the disfunctional bathroom door when she heard a shuffle from further down the hall. The last room in this section, in fact.

Lana raised an eyebrow suspiciously before making her way to where she had heard the noise. She rested her head on the cold metal door, ear pressed against it.

"Quinn?" She asked hopefully, pursing her lips.

No response. However, there was another noise.

"If that's you in there, Quinn. I hope you realize how selfish you are, just sitting there doing nothing while we're working our assess off trying to safe Perdido Beach and everyone in it."

She bit her lip when she heard a noise she couldn't really make out. Another quiet shuffle or a sniff? She couldn't tell.

She sighed, pulling her impatient self away from the door and pushing the icy cold door handle down, pushing the door open and entering the room.

She was beyond surprised with what she saw, not having expected it.

"Oh my gosh, Quinn." Her heart clenched at the sight of the boy who was sitting in the corner of the small claustrophobic room, cheeks covered in continually rolling tears from his red, puffy eyes. His arms were hugging his knees that were pulled up to his chest, chin rested at the top of his knees.

She inches closer to him, squeezing herself into the tiny place between multiple storage boxes. It took her a few seconds before she could finally find a position to sit right in front of Quinn, legs crossed.

"What's wrong?" She asked softly, feeling bad about the harsh tone she had used while speaking to him a few minutes ago.

"It's stupid." He looked away, obviously embarrassed by the fact that a girl was seeing him cry like a baby.

"Clearly it's not stupid if it matters this much to you." She said gently, trying to offer a small smile which he didn't return. "You can tell me, I won't judge you. I promise."

Lana slowly regained eye contact with Quinn. He gave her hopeful, trusting eyes, his breath hitching before he began to shakily speak. "I'm a coward. I-I-I'm ready to g-give anyone up if it saves me." He stammered, tears continuing to shamelessly roll down his cheeks.

"That's not true, Quinn." Lana declared, clearly not knowing everything that had happened while she was trying to survive packs of Cayotes.

"Yes, yes it is, Lana." Quinn said in wan and shattered voice. "An innocent girl was being- was being beaten to death, and instead of h-helping Sam stop Orc, all I did was say th-that it's none of our business. I let her die, Lana."

"That's not your faul-"

"I-I-I was ready to give Sam a-and everyone up so easily just so- so Caine wouldn't cement my hands or whatever." Quinn carried on, and at the same time he was trying to stop his embarrassing tears to no avail.

"You were scared, Quinn. Everyone gets scared, and everyone makes stupid choices at times." Lana sighed sympathetically. "It's not your fault you were put into positions where you were too afraid to make the right choice."

"Y-you don't get it." He whimpered, roughly wiping his tears eyes with his shirtsleeve. "I did it more than once, and every single time I did it, it was to protect myself. Even if I wasn't scared, I probably would choose myself over anyone or anything else."

Lana pulled Quinn's aggressive hands away from his pain-filled eyes.

"I'm selfish, just like you said."

Lana's lips parted slightly, having completely forgotten the hurtful words she had spoken. She felt really bad now. "I didn't mean that, okay? You're not selfish, Quinn. In fact, the fact that you care this much about what you did wrong shows that you're not selfish. I can tell for a fact, that if you weren't terrified, you wouldn't have made those bad decisions or said those things."

That seemed to get Quinn to acquiesce in what Lana had just said, his tensed eyebrows softening a little and he looked down and his folded hands.

"But still..." he trailed. "Sam would've never done any of that."

"You're not Sam, you're not meant to be like Sam, okay? You're Quinn and you're great the way you are. You make bad descisions when you're scared, that's okay. At least you're learning from that." Lana lectured, voice soft and reassuring. "You live with both your parents, right?"

Quinn nodded, silently. His tears had come to a halt but from the way he was keeping quiet and avoiding eye contact, it was clear that there was still a lump in his throat that could bring him to tears in seconds.

"Okay, so you never got to be the man of the house, right? Sam has been the man of his house for most of his life. He's always had to protect his mom and stuff. You never had to go through that, so you can't blame yourself for not immediately taking charge of things and trying to take care of everyone and everything. Okay?"

It was silent for a few minutes while Quinn took in Lana's words of wisdom. Maybe she's right, he thought. Quinn contemplated a bit, tears still springing into his eyes whenever he thought about the stupid, selfish things he did. He couldn't help but overthink and feel guilty for what he had said and done repeatedly, but Lana was right.

"Okay?" Lana repeated, taking Quinn's hand into hers to get his attention.

Quinn looked back up at the caring girl and wiped his eyes one last time before nodding slowly. "Okay."

"Now can we get out of this tiny place before I have a claustrophobia attack or would you like to carry on crying like a baby?" Lana questioned playfully to ease the mood. Quinn didn't take it to heart, knowing that Lana was just joking around and trying to cheer him up.

She got up to her feet and held her hand out for Quinn to take, which he willingly accepted.

"Thanks, Lana."


End file.
